Scenes from the Louvre

Norman Dello Joio was born in New York City and descended from three generations of organists; he himself was a church organist and choir director at age fourteen.  He attended the Julliard School for three years, then transferred to Yale, where he studied with Paul Hindemith.  He held positions at Sarah Lawrence College (NY) and at the Mannes College of Music in New York City, where he was Professor of Composition.  In 1972, he moved to Boston, and from 1972 to 1979, was Dean of the School of Arts at Boston University.  Dello Joio has composed for virtually every medium, including television.  In addition to winning an Emmy in 1965 for the original version of "Scenes from the Louvre" and the New York Music Critics Circle Award, he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for "Meditations on Ecclesiastes."

"Scenes from the Louvre" was originally written for orchestra to accompany an NBC television special on the Louvre gallery.  Broadcast in November 1964, the version for band was commissioned by Baldwin-Wallace College for its Symphonic Band, conducted by Kenneth Snapp.  The transcription was completed and premiered in 1966 with the composer conducting.  The composition is a suite of the television music, portraying the museum's development during its construction.  Cast in five movements, classical forms are used such as binary, strophic, and theme with variations.  The composition does not have a particularly modernistic sound due to its original purpose as descriptive music, but Dello Joio uses a liberal dash of chromaticism, adding spice to his accompaniments.  Parallels to "Variants on a Medieval Tune" are apparent, especially in the forth movement.  A chorale and cantus firmus  treatment of development figure prominently in the third movement.

(Edited by Richard Miles)

The Gathering of the Ranks at Hebron

Holsinger was born December 26, 1945 in Kansas City, Missouri.  He received his Bachelor of Music degree from Central Methodist College in Fayette, Missouri in 1967, and his Master of Music degree from Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg in 1974.  He did further post-graduate study at Kansas University from 1979-81 where he also served as staff arranger for the University Bands and was Director of the Swing Choir.  Holsinger was twice the recipient of the prestigious Ostwald Award for band composition, sponsored by the American Bandmasters Association.  He currently serves as assistant to the Chief Musician at Shady Grove Church in Grand Prairie, Texas.  Among his activities, he arranges and produces worship music albums, directs the Academy instrumental music program with his wife, Winona, and teaches theory in the church-affiliated Bible College.  Holsinger serves annually as an instructor at several church music conferences and visits several universities yearly, serving as guest composer-conductor.  He has held similar temporary posts in Poland and Guatemala.  He was commissioned by Kappa Kappa Psi, national honorary band fraternity, to compose a work for their National Intercollegiate Band and conduct its premiere performance at their national convention in 1989.

Hebron was a prominent city of the Old Testament.  It was a dwelling place for Abram; the site where Abraham's wife, Sarah, died; a "city of refuge' under the leadership of Joshua; a gift to the descendants of Aaron, the Levite Priest; and the capital city King David chose from which to rule Judah for seven and one-half years.  The Gathering of the Ranks of Hebron depicts that time in biblical history when almost 350,000 men came together, armed for battle, determined to make David king over all Israel, eventually making the first ill-fated attempt at bringing the Arc of the Covenant back to Jerusalem.

Cajun Folk Songs

I. La Belle et le Capitaine

Frank Ticheli (born January 21, 1958 in Monroe, Louisiana) has composed works for a variety of media, including band, wind ensemble, orchestra, chamber, and theatre-music.  His works have been performed by numerous ensembles throughout the United States, Canada, and Japan, including the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the orchestras of Austin, Colorado, Frankfurt, Memphis, Nashville, and San Antonio, and many university, high school, and middle school ensembles.

His music has been described as "lean and muscular...and above all, active, in motion", "showing an unabashed self-assuredness arising from a great foundation of orchestral technique", and expressing "direct emotion, creating dramatic visceral impact."

He received his Doctor of Musical Arts and Masters Degrees in Composition from the University of Michigan where he studied with William Albright, George B. Wilson, and Pulitzer-prize-winners Leslie Basset and William Bolcom, and his Bachelor of Music in Composition from Southern Methodist University where he studied with Donald Erb.

He is an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Southern California, and is now in his fourth year as Composer-in-Residence of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra.  He previously was an Assistant Professor of Music at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where he served on the board of directors of the Texas Composers Forum, and on the advisory committee for the San Antonio Symphony's "Music of the Americas" project.

Cajuns are descendants of the Acadians, a group of early French colonists who began settling in Acadia (now Nova Scotia) around 1604.  In 1755 they were driven out by the British, eventually resettling in South Louisiana and parts of Texas, preserving many of the customs, traditions, stories, and songs of their ancestors.

Although a rich Cajun folksong tradition exists, the music has become increasingly commercialized and Americanized throughout the twentieth century, obscuring its original simplicity and directness.  In response to this trend, Alan and John Lomax traveled to South Louisiana in 1934 to collect and record numerous Cajun folksongs in the field for the Archive of Folk Music in the Library of Congress.  By doing so, they helped to preserve Cajun music in its original form as a pure and powerful expression of Louisiana French Society.

"La Belle et la Capitaine" tells the story of a young girl who feigns death to avoid being seduced by a captain.  Its Dorian melody is remarkably free, shifting back and forth between duple and triple meters.  In this arrangement the melody is stated three times.  The third time an original countermelody is added in flutes, oboe, clarinet, and trumpet.

"Merry Mount" Suite

Howard Hanson is one of the most important figures in the American music world.  He has exerted widespread influence as a composer, conductor, and educator.  Born in Wahoo, Nebraska, in 1896, Hanson studied music at Luther College, at the Institute of Musical Art (Juilliard School of Music) in New York, and at Northwestern University.  At the age of twenty, he accepted an appointment as dean of the Conservatory of Fine Arts, College of the Pacific in San Jose.  In 1921 he was the first composer to enter the American Academy in Rome, having won its Prix de Rome.  Upon his return to the United States in 1924, he became the director of the Eastman School of Music, a position held until 1964.  In 1936 he was elected to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters in New York, and in 1938 to fellowship in the Royal Academy of Music in Sweden.  In 1944 he received the Pulitzer Prize for his Symphony No. 4.  In 1945 he won the Ditzen Award, followed in 1946 by the George Foster Peabody Award, and in 1951 by the Award of Merit of the Alumni Association of Northwestern University.  He holds thirty-six honorary doctorates from  American colleges and universities, in addition to many other honors and distinctions received both in this country and abroad.

Hanson's major works include his opera Merry Mount, six symphonies, many choral and chamber works.  Among his principle works for band are March Carillon, Dies Natalis, Young Person's Guide to the Six-Tone Scale, and Laude.  Hanson's style is romantic, tonal (although enhanced by euphonious dissonances), with asymmetric rhythms at times, and a preference for the low instrument registers.

The Merry Mount is an opera based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, The Maypole of Merry Mount.  Hawthorne's has an historical basis in conflict between the Puritans and Cavaliers, which in recently-settled New England resulted in the conflict between settlers of Plymouth and the Cavalier group led by Thomas Morton, who had established Merry Mount at what is now Quincey, Massachusetts.  The plot of the opera is anything but merry: set in a Puritan town in old New England, it concerns a pastor's romantic obsession with a visiting Lady, and the unleashing of his repressed hedonism.  The story was a natural for Hanson, combining his love for "warm-blooded music," poetic description, and Puritan history.  The opera had its stage premiere on February 10, 1934 at the Metropolitan Opera; four years later, Hanson prepared an orchestral suite from the work.  The dazzling Merry Mount, with its lush orchestration, elicited 50 curtain calls in its operatic premiere at the Met.

The austere Overture, which describes the Puritans, makes extensive use of the modal writing Hanson considered "very much in keeping with the Puritan character...I have always been passionately devoted to the great modal melodies which have come down to us from the past.  As a boy, I heard countless Swedish folk-songs and folk-dances, most of which were in the Aeolian or Dorian modes...In church I was impressed with the chorale melodies which form so important a part of the Lutheran service, many of which are so strongly influenced by the Gregorian chant."

The playfulness of the second movement Children's Dance is deceptive;  it reflects the disruptive presence in town of the hedonistic Cavaliers.  The third movement, Love Duet, would not be out of place in Hanson's Romantic Symphony, with its passionate account of Pastor Bradford's desire for Lady Marigold Sandys; while the exhilaration Maypole Dances use original themes written in "the old modes" to depict the erection of the maypole, an object that scandalizes the Puritans-and reflects the human sensuality that leads Pastor Bradford to murder.

Synopsis of the Tunes

Look below for what the composer's have to say about their creations.

Dream of Oenghus - Is about a prince who has a nightmare every night about a princess, who he falls in love with, yet can never attain. Eventually, upon awakening, he decides to take a journey to find this princess.

Song of Moses, Listen Oh Heaven that I May Speak- This song I believe is a prayer, from the slaves in Egypt, for a savior (our hero Moses) to lead them on a journey from Egypt and slavery to the Promised Land (milk and honey and all that stuff)

Escape from Plato's Cave - This piece is about a group of people who live underground and have never seen the beauties of the world above.

Message of Man (our ballad) - Is about a guy who finds these people and tells them what they are missing from living in a cave.

Escape to the Light - A few of our friends, the cave dwellers, take on the challenge of the Escape and eventually, through noble battle and dark journey, emerge from the shadowy underworld into the light.

 

"Journey out of the Darkness"

It's a journey, starting with our nightmare in Oenghus. We awaken from our nightmare (which is our symbolic darkness) to make a prayer (or resolution if you want to stay away from the religious road) to leave the dark place and to find a better life. The Message of Man is our understanding that the better place (the light) really exists. And Escape to the Light, is our battle with the things which hold us in darkness. Fear, Uncertainty.

The journey from darkness to light is something that people struggle with every day. The Darkness can be anything: Chaos, Insanity, Sickness, Loss, Evil, Racism, The job you hate, A relationship that goes bad, (you fill in the blank). Any personal darkness that people may realize and strive to get to a better place. This is represented by Oengus. Darkness. Confusion. We are lost. Savage...and of course there is the emotional resolve of coming out of the darkness, into light or happiness or recovery or the promise land (Listen O Heavens)... the rest of the show plays off that concept and recapitulates it (Plato's Cave is a true coming out of darkness, physically and spiritually). The closer at the end reiterates the motif again.

"Journey out of the Darkness"

Movement 1 -- Darkness

Movement 2 -- Faith (or Discovery)

Movement 3 -- Escape

Movement 4 -- Rebirth (transformation)

---

The Dream of Oenghus

by Rulf Rodin (b.1961)

Rolf Rodin was born in Frankfurt/Main (Germany) on December 9, 1961. He studied music education, composition, conducting and theory of music in Frankfurt and Wurzburg. After graduating in composition (1991) and conduction (1992) he lives as a freelance composer and since 1993 he also lectures theory of music at the Frankfurter Musikhochschule. Rulf Rodin held a scholarship of the "Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes" and in 1990/91 was also awarded a scholarship for a six month sojourn in Paris at the Cite Internationale des Arts from the Bavarian Ministry for Cultrual Affairs. Some of his compositions for chamber music, choir and orchestra have won prizes at Germany and international competitions.

The musical poem The Dream of Oenghus refers to the Irish legend of the same name which was edited by Frederik Hetmann in his collection "Irish Magic Garden - Fairy Tales, Legends and Stories from Ireland." The collection was published by the Eugen Diederichs Verlag. In this legend Prince Oenghus has a nightly vision when fast asleep: He sees a girl who plays the flute and falls in love with her. However, as she keeps disappearing she remains unattainable for him for the time being. He consequently set out to search for her until he finally finds the girl. This piece is no musical retelling of this legend, in a way it rather invites reading the story, as there are only single phases and atmospheres of the legend serving as extra - musical sources of imagination.

The composition is conceived in a large two part form. The first part was composed in 1993/94 and commissioned by the Confederation of German Band and Folk Music Associations as a Grade 3/4 test piece and consequently selected for the competitions that took place during the second German Federal Festival of Music in Munster/Westfalia.

The music of the first part largely converts into sound patterns the vision which is described at the beginning of the legend. It was the atmosphere of something dreamlike or also something unattainable that became the inspiration for writhing the music of a tenderly somber world of dreams: Noise sounds of the beginning, bell like motifs and a vacillation sound stratum hovering in itself bestow upon this composition its mysteriously nocturnal character. Following it (through several repetitions of a mysterious chant in continuously increasing instrumentation and dynamics) an arc which apparently does not end is created that is able to symbolize the quest for the girl in terms of length of space and time in a dreamlike premonition.

Without having read the legend again in some two years, the second larger part of the musical poem was written in 1996 for the State Wind Orchestra of Baden Wurttemberg. It examines the more "real" aspects of the legend. At its beginning already the second part of this composition makes association, expressed by its ferocity, to the prince's "aberrations" in his quest for the girl. This, as we know, was shown in the first part in a visionary and idealistically transfigured way. This also applies to the importance of the flute which was alluded to only towards the end of the first part whereas here it is given ample room for development: A large cantilena full of enigmatic expression floats above an harmonic carpet which links the visions of nightly tranquillity of the first part. A constantly repeated rhythmical increase of march like character climaxes in picking up the "mysterious chant" of the first part. In that way it leads to formal unity of the complete work in an evident way. The atmosphere of the apotheosis of the final coda makes the relieving B flat major disappear in the visionary noise sounds of the beginning and dismisses the audience in a peaceful "legendary" atmosphere.

---

The Song of Moses

1. Listen O Heaven, I Will Speak!

3. The Lord's Portion is His People

by David R. Holsinger (b. 1945)

Holsinger was born December 26, 1945 in Kansas City, Missouri. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from Central Methodist College in Fayette, Missouri in 1967, and his Master of Music degree from Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg in 1974. He did further postgraduate study at Kansas University from 1979-81 where he also served as staff arranger for the University Bands and was Director of the Swing Choir. Holsinger was twice the recipient of the prestigious Ostwald Award for band composition, sponsored by the American Bandmasters Association. He currently serves as assistant to the Chief Musician at Shady Grove Church in Grand Prairie, Texas. Among his activities, he arranges and produces worship music albums, directs the Academy instrumental music program with his wife, Winona, and teaches theory in the church-affiliated Bible College. Holsinger serves annually as an instructor at several church music conferences and visits several universities yearly, serving as guest composer-conductor. He has held similar temporary posts in Poland and Guatemala. He was commissioned by Kappa Kappa Psi, national honorary band fraternity, to compose a work for their National Intercollegiate Band and conduct its premiere performance at their national convention in 1989.

Composed in 1993, A Song Of Moses, consists of four movements for SATB Voices, Winds and Percussion, based on portions f scripture found in Deuteronomy 32. This section of the old Testament deals with the final words of Moses, both prophetic and admonitory, given to the children of Israel shortly before his death. The composition had been originally sketched in 1992 for SATB voices and Timpani only. However, when approached by former Air Force Band Commander Alan Bonner, to write a work incorporating the superb talents of the Sing Sergeants with the Air Force Band, this earlier sketch took on added dimension and was greatly enlarged to include the vast panorama of musicians it now requires. This is Holsinger's second commission for the Air Force. in 1990, he wrote, To Tame the Perilous Skies for the then Tactical Air Command Band under the direction of Colonel Lowell Graham, now the conductor of the Washington D.C. Air Force Band.

---

Escape From Plato's Cave

1. The Cave, The Struggle, and The Man from the Light

2. Message of the Man (The Fragile Heart)

3. Escape ... Into the Light

by Steven Melillo

Story:

Plato tells a story in which cave-dwellers are deprived the knowledge of the Light outside. In this story, Escape from Plato's Cave, the people of the Underworld are visited by a Man from the Light. He tells them of a wondrous world outside. Some Cave dwellers struggle against the would be listeners, using chains to forever imprison them in the shadows of the Cave. His message heard, a few take on the challenge of the Escape and eventually, through noble battle and dark journey, emerge from the shadowy underworld Into the Light.

Dedication:

At the very moment I had reached for the climax of the third movement, the transcendence from "D"ark to "G"od, I received word that Father Peter Rinaldi died. As a boy growing up, so often running to him at recess and serving mass with him every day of the summer, he taught me, by action, the Message of "the Man "... a message of Love. He literally gave me the shirt off his back one day, no show, no lesson, only Love. His entire Life was in dedication to something higher ... a Prayer to that which humbled him. My young adult novel, Only For Now, was dedicated to him, his name that of the main character. Subconsciously, I've quoted the 9 movement Wind Ensemble Suite, my first piece, inspired by that book. Now Father Rinaldi has gone into the light. He would not have me dedicate anything to him. His eyes were always looking upward beyond himself. But, to him, a man from the light ... I bow humbly and offer back that which was, and never really will be mine to give.

---

EMail me if you have any comments or suggestions.

 

-----------------------------44909176292405 Content-Disposition: form-data; name="userfile"; filename=""